Gas won’t turn on (1 Viewer)

[Happy Jim]

Hiya,

Before I go the full mental and start breaking things (the state before I realise less force would have been advisable), is there any collective wisdom I can lean on please?

I just tried to turn on my gas using the master switch inside, instead of turning green like normal it starts to flash red (book says “low voltage”). I can hear what I presume is a solenoid going clonk in the gas locker (actually sounds like a half arsed attempt at engaging rather than a properly big clonk) but no gas available. I probed the choc bloc and there is no voltage showing (on my own so couldn’t probe it whilst flicking the switch inside).

It all worked last week!

Questions:
I have no idea how much gas is in my bottles, would empty be a problem?

Is this a known “thing” and replacement is the default action?

Thanks

Jim

 

[WynandJean]

The green button at the top might need pushing in to enable the gas flow.

Wyn

 

[two]

Make sure that at least one of your gas bottles has gas in, and it’s turned on. Being out of gas seems the most likely situation. If you have gas, check that the battery is up to scratch.

Your gas bottles appear to feed into an auto-changeover regulator before passing to a ‘heatec’ device. The rotatable pointer with red/green indicators on shows which cylinder is being treated as master or slave and the centre may indicate if there is any gas available (but it’s not one I’ve seen before). I’m not familiar with the ‘heatec’ device in your picture, either, but think you may have an internal control for switching the gas on or off. If it is, I think it should be removed and by-passed, rather than replaced.

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[sparky]

Hi the heatec is a solanoid valve witch is connected to a control box in the van it part of the crash gas disconnect incase of a crash I have the same one fitted to my Burstner and had the same problem I got mine to work by turning the switch on and the green light was flashing so I gave the heatec unit a tap with a spanner and it let the gas through this as happened once so I tend not to turn it off I think the valve gets stuck have not found the control box yet .i also tried to find a new heatec unit but no luck it’s a toptron unit from germany

 

[Happy Jim]

The green button at the top might need pushing in to enable the gas flow.

Wyn

Foiled! it's just a green sticker on one side and a Hole through to a red sticker on the other (for flipping over between bottles) - good idea though

Make sure that at least one of your gas bottles has gas in, and it’s turned on. Being out of gas seems the most likely situation. If you have gas, check that the battery is up to scratch.

Your gas bottles appear to feed into an auto-changeover regulator before passing to a ‘heatec’ device. The rotatable pointer with red/green indicators on shows which cylinder is being treated as master or slave and the centre may indicate if there is any gas available (but it’s not one I’ve seen before). I’m not familiar with the ‘heatec’ device in your picture, either, but think you may have an internal control for switching the gas on or off. If it is, I think it should be removed and by-passed, rather than replaced.

Batteries are both good, although I haven't found the little ECU thing to test the ouput at that stage. There is a center viewing bubble which looked like it was half way between green and red (so empty is my hopeful choice currently, I'll get some scales out tonight and weigh them). I could bypass the device as in reality I never leave a gas appliance burning whilst I drive, but equally if I do that I'll probably forget to manually turn the gas over before I move so would prefer to have the working Crash protection thing in place.

Hi the heatec is a solanoid valve witch is connected to a control box in the van it part of the crash gas disconnect incase of a crash I have the same one fitted to my Burstner and had the same problem I got mine to work by turning the switch on and the green light was flashing so I gave the heatec unit a tap with a spanner and it let the gas through this as happened once so I tend not to turn it off I think the valve gets stuck have not found the control box yet .i also tried to find a new heatec unit but no luck it’s a toptron unit from germany

Right - that sounds like a good 2nd step (gas test first), percussion test to follow -

Thanks all - I'll return after a bit of testing later this evening

Jim

 

[two]

Take it one step at a time, Jim. Hopefully it'll be as simple as getting a re-fill, then you can leave everything else as it is. If your pump works fine, chances are that the battery is good.

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[Guigsy]

No chance that it's butane and too cold to vaporise is it?

 

[tonyidle]

No chance that it's butane and too cold to vaporise is it?

The OP photos show Propane.

 

[Larrynwin]

Is there another button on the Heatec unit, my Truma unit has one and pops out when a cylinder is changed or in a collision and needs pushing in to resume supply.

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[Happy Jim]

Weighed the bottles and they come out at 11.5kg & 10.3kg which feels fairly close to empty so I’ll do the obvious tomorrow and get new ones to eliminate that. It’s 3deg C currently so hopefully just too chilly to gas off the dregs in the bottles.
Better a learning experience now whilst I’m at home rather than on the road

Jim

 

[Happy Jim]

Both bottles changed out for new ones......No change
Percussion test on the solenoid.....No change

Bother!

Time to go on the hunt for the ECU thing and probe the output voltage I guess

 

[two]

Take a look at the connector below the solenoid and see if there's a voltage across any of the three wires.

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[Happy Jim]

Working!

Whilst trying to turn it on, getting the flashing red light, hearing the solenoid attempt to engage, I noticed that the duration of the clunk was varying - I'm guessing the solenoid was trying to latch on with varying levels of success......and then one final Kerlunk and it stayed green.

I'm leaving it on currently just to give the van a good heating through post winter hibernation!

With it engaged I now get 12.62V between White (+) and Red (-), and also White (+) and Black (-) (nothing twixt Red & Black).

I haven't found much through trawling the net other than 1 post on a French MH forum that intimates that the solenoid can be stripped (although no instructions), otherwise replacement seems to be the preferred route (at £300+ it won't be my prefered route!).

Rgds

Jim

 

[two]

Relieved to hear it, but probably not as relieved as you are!

 

[TheBig1]

the solenoid failed on mine last easter. now changed for a standard cavagna 2 way regulator for about £30

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